


Three Times Artemis Showed Up On Wally’s Doorstep (And One Time He Showed Up On Hers)

by orphan_account



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Exactly What It Says on the Tin, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-05
Updated: 2012-11-05
Packaged: 2017-11-18 00:42:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/554998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the ‘college’ prompt on Wally/Artemis week. See also: the title</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three Times Artemis Showed Up On Wally’s Doorstep (And One Time He Showed Up On Hers)

**Author's Note:**

> cross-post.

**one (artemis)**

“Did you get your letter? This girl in my French class said she got hers from Berkeley, but she’s a couché chatte, so I’m not too concerned.” Artemis leaned against the Wests’s door-frame. She wasn’t sure when their relationship had jumped from awkwardly holding hands to her waiting for him outside his house (or occasionally inside it—Mary liked her). Artemis was glad for it though. Wally smirked at her.

“We missed the first part of that conversation. Y’know the fun bit where we kiss and you don’t get super stressed about stuff?” He leaned towards her but she pulled back.

“C’mon Wall, I’m serious,” she said. He rolled his eyes and shook his head.

“Babe, don’t you think you’d be the first person to know? Well, second because I’d know first obviously. Actually third, my mom reads all my mail. But either way, you would know soon. You’d be the first person I’d make an effort to tell. Even before Rob. I’d break bro code for you.”

“You’re eighteen and your mom reads your mail?” Artemis replied.

“Really, that’s all you got out of my story? I was heartfelt…And you know that my mother and I are close; you love Mary.” 

“I honestly don’t even know how to respond to the words that come out of your mouth sometimes.” She smiled. He took her hand and pulled her up from the stoop.

“You’re going to get into Stanford. You’re smart and kick ass - although they don’t know that you do so literally - and you’re, y’know, a minority.”

“Wow, really, West? Going with the mildly offensive approach?”

“I meant as a hot girl who is dating someone as awesome as me. We are in rare supply, babe.”

“Nice save.”

“You’re still worrying, I can tell because you’ve got this crinkle right between your eyes. Seriously, we’re going to be fine. I know I can get in, it’s pretty much guaranteed.”

“Wally,” his mother called, interrupting the two. “Someone dropped off some mail. I think Batman picked it up, you know I don’t like him going through our things, but anyways, there’s a letter from Stanford.”

“Call me with the results!” Artemis shouted over her shoulder. “I have to see if he left something for me too!”

“You don’t want to see what if I got in?”

“No time, my sister might stop by and God knows what she’d make me do to get the letter from her.”

Mary ends up having to call her and tell her that Wally got in. “He’d tell you himself, but he’s too busy hollering.” 

Artemis did think that she heard some whooping in the background, but she was hoping that it wasn’t her boyfriend. Of course it was. “Well, once he gets back to earth, please tell him that I got in too.”

 

**two (artemis)**

“My roommate hates me.” She is leaning against his hallmate’s door and holding a beer in her hand. “I was in there for two minutes and she gave me this, this look.”

“Be still my heart!” Wally exclaimed with faux enthusiasm, mopping a hand across his forehead. “Artemis Crock, scared off by a look?” He dropped the hand, already back to grinning, and took a seat beside her. 

She snorted. “It’s not that. I just…I knew that look. You didn’t go through life at a preppy school with two friends and not get that look. It’s the you’re-tacky-and-I-hate-you look.”

“And you left that kind of maniac alone with your belongings?” Now he put a hand to his heart, his face a parody of surprise. 

She giggled at it and took a swig of beer. “What else am I supposed to do, she’s going to be with them all year anyway. She might as well get comfortable with them now,” Artemis said with a wrinkled nose.

“I’m sure she’ll make great friends with your underwear drawer.”

“You keep on like this and you won’t,” she replied. “What happened to being the sympathetic boyfriend?”

“He’s already thinking about next year, after this stupid freshmen-are-required-to-live-on-campus stuff is over and we’ll have our own place in a duplex on the other side of town.

“What, have you already picked it out or something??”

Wally shifted uncomfortably but didn’t say anything, and Artemis gasped. “You haven’t. Oh my God. Really? Really?”

“Maybe?” He tried to look confused, but his freckles had faded and they didn’t cloud up his expressions anymore.

“We’ve only been here a month!”

“It’s never too early to think about the future, babe.”

“Now you just sound like a brochure.” 

He kissed her cheek, standing up like he wanted out of the conversation, which he probably did. She wouldn’t forget this, though. “Hey, want another beer?”

“Nope I’m good,” she said as she watched him walk away, and she knew that she’d see the duplex sooner rather than later, and she was surprisingly okay with that. 

**three (artemis)**

 

All nighters sucked, completely and totally. Artemis hated coffee—hated all caffeine, really—but it was the only way that she could manage to keep her eyes open and focused on the books. She really wasn’t sure if the font was always this tiny or if her eyes were just tired. 

But she had to take a break. There was only so much of sitting in her, horribly uncomfortable, dorm room chair. For a while she didn’t know where she was going, but she found her feet taking her in the direction of Wally’s dorm so she decided that would be her destination. 

She only had to knock twice before Wally’s stoner roommate opened the door. “Wallis, your girlfriend’s here. Don’t do anything while I’m in here. I might be fucked up but that doesn’t mean I want to watch anyone get fucked in real life.”

“Babe, it’s two in the morning and I have a quiz in Physics tomorrow.”

“I know, but I’m pulling an all nighter and I need somewhere to go.”

“So you came to me. It’s okay,” Wally said through a yawn, “I draw chicks in like a magnet.” 

“I’d better be the only polar opposite showing up at your door.”

“You know I love it when you talk science to me.”He yawned again, but smiled at her anyway. “How badly do you need to study?”  
“Pretty bad. I can’t make a C in this class.”

“How long have you been studying for?”

“Since nine,” she admitted.

“C’mon, it’s two now. It’s not like you have to finish a project, it’s just an exam. Come back to bed with me.”

Artemis almost said no. She knew she should have said no. But with sleep on his face and his hair sticking up in tuft’s like a little kid she knew she couldn’t have, even if she’d wanted to. “Fine,” she finally said, making Wally scoot over so that she had room. “But if I wake-up and see the burnout being a creeper this won’t happen again.”

“I resent that,” a muffled voice said from the top bunk, but neither Wally or Artemis reacted. They were already asleep.

 

 **one (wally)**

“Artemis, I really want to talk about this.” Wally pounded on her door, incessantly. “Don’t think I won’t wake your neighbors. Do I need to remind you of the first few months of us knowing each other? I can be both annoying and unrelenting!”

The door swung open and Wally nearly tumbled inside. He straightened himself and smiled sheepishly. Artemis sighed and propped the door open against her hip. “It is two in the morning and I just want to sleep, not fight. If you come in, we’ll only do the latter.”

“Just…Look, can I just say one thing and then we can be on our merry way and sleep?” He folded his hands together in a begging motion. She nodedd, obliging him.

“Look, I know this was a really big thing to buy without telling you. But, I just saw it and I couldn’t not buy it.”

“It was an apartment, Wally! Not just an apartment, an apartment with a dog! I didn’t even know that was possible and somehow you managed it.” She bit her lip.

“It’s not like we hadn’t talked about it before.” He said. She shook her head emphatically at his statement.

Artemis crossed her arms. “We talked about a lot of things, Wally. But, you know who I am, I can’t..I can’t do stuff like this.”

“Why not? I mean, just the other day you said that your sister - who by the way, is a worse person than you - was living with Roy. If they can manage, so can we.”

“I said she was doing Roy, which is entirely different. A-a-a-and, look maybe…” He watched her bite her lip and the familiar motion was unsettling. The lip bite stalling technique was an old habit of hers, used when she has already decided what she wants to say but not how to break it to him.

“Just spit it out, babe.” Wally said, trying steadily to make eye contact.

“Maybe I don’t want to live with you!” She was on the verge of tears. Wally blinked slowly, digesting the words. He nodded, looking down.

“Wall, I, it isn’t like that. Shit.” She grabbed his arm. “I’m bad at things like this, like us. What if we live together and it screws everything up? What if you realize that you don’t like me or I nag too much or you eat too much or… Wally, there’s so much that could go wrong.”

“I love you. Us living together isn’t going to change that. I mean, sure any of those things could happen, but think of all the good things.” He had her now, her chin resting on his shoulder. Her chin moved slightly as she allowed herself to smile a tad.

“Like what?” She pulled back from him, her nose about an inch from his.

“Well, for starter’s, waking up next to a total babe. Mostly you, but for me as well. I can cook a mean grilled cheese sandwich and have mastered the art of microwave cooking.”

“I guess I wouldn’t have to walk as far for a booty call or science geek help.” Artemis raised her eyebrows. “Plus I do like dogs.”

“I think we should name it Nelson.” Wally smiled, knowing he had (for once) won the argument.

“Wally, for Christ’s sake are you still on that stupid ‘oh, you’re my spitfire’ shit? It didn’t even work the first time you tried to use it to get laid.” She noticed the wounded look in his eye and groaned. 

“Hey, I’d want someone to name their dog after me.”

She just studied his face, knowing that he was going to be stubborn about this. “Fine. But if you name it, you have to clean up after it.”


End file.
